A New Beginning
I hope everyone had a great holiday break and you found some time to reflect on how your business plans. I took a little break from the blog to work on my 2016 business plans, review everything that happened in my business in 2015 and spend some time with my family.
My review was pretty eye-opening and I discovered something about myself and my business …. Last year didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.
I found my focus and I knew what programs I wanted to create. I did my monthly planning. I did a review every 3 months to see where I was with my plans – the activity in my social sites, where my site traffic came from and even drilled this down to learn what posts and content brought the most people to my site.
I showed up every day and did the work. So what, happened? Why didn’t 2015 turn into the year I had envisioned in all those planning worksheets?
It wasn’t until I saw the full picture of 2015 in my end of the year review that I realized I had fallen into the 80/20 trap. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your skills.
I was spending way too much time working on the 80% of the actions I thought I should be doing and focused less on the 20% that would bring me stronger growth in my business and more successful results. I knew where all the dots were – I just didn’t do a good job of connecting them.
So in the spirit of clearing out my old ways and bringing in the new, I’d like to share with you how I reviewed 2015 to get ready for 2016.
My Power Words
It seems to be the big thing to have power words for yourself every year. Words that represent how you’d like your year to go. Words that give you direction or help you move outside your comfort box.
I started this tradition a couple of years ago and I will admit, it did help me create a consistent theme to everything that I worked on in my business.
My power word for 2014 was Design. In 2014, I began the process of designing the plans and direction for my business.
In 2015, I took my power word to the next level and claimed it would be the year of Build. Once I laid down the foundation in 2014, it was time to start building this thing in 2015.
When it came time to come up with my power word for 2016, I thought about the 80/20 rule. What could I do to grow my business and increase my time to work on my 20% result-driven work?
I could invest more time in learning how to focus on my 20% skills. I could invest with the online coaches I was following and participate in their training programs.
I could invest in myself and my business. So, my word for 2016 became Invest.
When I looked up the definition of the word Invest, I found this:
I think that’s exactly what I need this year so 2016 will be the year of Investing.
My 2015 Social Media Story
Last year I did a full disclosure of my social media story – what worked and which sites were just a great big frustration. I ran a few more social experiments and discovered how to be more efficient with my time online as well as what happens when you don’t work the steps.
Read on as I share with you my 2015 Social Media Story:
If you’re a regular reader than you know that Pinterest is my number traffic referral to my site. I use this site to grow my website traffic, to find content to share on my other social sites and to do research for my social media experiments.
I tested out Pinterest’s Promoted Pins and am happy to share that this paid social advertising is my number one traffic source to increase my email list. Once I saw how Pinterest could get people to click on something as simple as my email opt-in, there was no doubt that adding a Promoted Pin would be a part of every one of my product and program launches.
Pinterest’s Smart Feed programming kicked into high gear last year and changed the way we use this visual site. I tested the way I pinned, what I pinned and how often. All of that testing helped discover a way to grow my Pinterest followers and reach new people with my content who were not already connected to me.
I was so excited with my results that I created The Pinterest Traffic Builder coaching sessions to teach other small business owners and bloggers how this process works so they can grow their Pinterest presence.
My Blog
Even though I blogged consistently every week, my web site traffic numbers were up and down all year. My traffic was overall higher than my numbers in 2014, but not a steady climb that I was hoping for with my blog.
I still believe in the power of blogging and creating your own content so it’s something that I will continue to improve on in 2016. Once I invest more time with that 20% stuff, my content should be even more focused to help me connect to more people who are looking for a resource like me.
As far as content goes, I did a few social media time management experiments which sparked the idea for my new social media productivity programs.
Keep watching my blog for the next series of social media time management experiments including a behind-the-scenes look at the development of a new online coaching program to help you develop a social media routine to get more done in less time.
Facebook has always been a struggle for me.
By the end of 2014, I realized that the people following my fan page had clicked the Like button when I was doing my old consulting work. They had no interest in my new social media focus.
So I made the decision to shut that page down and start all over with a new fan page – and I blogged about the lessons I learned on the way.
I learned how to use my Facebook Insights to plan my content and posting times. I experimented with Boost Posts and learned the trick to make sure your image gets approved.
And then there was the month when I found out what happens when you’re not showing up in Facebook and doing the work. That one was a good reminder to get back in there and keep at it.
But honestly, I found my year-long experiment to be more about how incredible Facebook Groups are as a social network. Participating in these groups is one of the best ways to grow your social connections.
Facebook Groups work because of one basic thing – people are already on Facebook for personal stuff so it’s easy for them to click over to the group to see what’s going on. They ask questions when they need help, share their success stories and promote their latest programs.
I’ve become so interested in how this whole Facebook Group stuff works that I’m working on some new ideas to test out a new process to help solopreneurs be more efficient with their time in Facebook Groups.
{ And yes, I’ll be sharing those results about what worked and what took more time than I realized! }
I still love Twitter and wish I could have done more with this social site. I tweeted and shared content but honestly, I didn’t spend as much time working to grow my connections.
I just posted and tweeted. I wasn’t social in one of the best networks to meet new people.
Now that I’ve got my posting schedule and plans in place for Facebook, it’s time to focus more on sharing and connecting with a 140 characters. I spent all of last year with my Facebook fan page experiment. 2016 will be the year of my focus on Twitter.
And I’m seriously intrigued with Periscope! I love the idea of Periscoping to talk about my social media time management tips, to share the development of my new productivity programs and to be more connected.
I see the whole Periscoping process as my next social experiment. As a person who is not a big fan of doing selfies, I’m going to do some mindset work to help me move past my fear of being on camera. It’ll be interesting to see how I’m going to pull this one off.
I was in and out of this program all year long. My numbers crept up when I was active and then dropped back down again when I would disappear.
Some solopreneurs swear by this program to grow their sales but I’m just not seeing it. Right now, I’m just having fun by sharing quotes, images of the stuff I’m working on and my personal world.
At this point, I’ll keep posting and try out some photo styling ideas to help me tell my story on Instagram. Maybe once I’m more consistent and work on a marketing strategy, then I’ll see the sales numbers that others are raving about with this visual site.
The blocks I experienced in the past turned a corner in 2015 but not in a good way. LinkedIn completely dropped off my radar.
With the ability to publish your own content and participate in networking groups, it totally makes sense to spend more time linking in. But I would go months without even logging in to update my profile.
Why am I not spending more of my time and efforts networking with other small business owners? Maybe it’s because it’s not as fun as pinning on Pinterest. Or it’s not as as cool to check LinkedIn updates on my phone as it is to see the latest tweets when I’m killing 15 minutes.
So maybe it’s more than just a small block that I need to work on in 2016. I need to make some changes in the way I think about LinkedIn and do a better job of participating in my LinkedIn groups and connecting with new people.
Your Social Media Story
As you get ready to start the new year with a fresh outlook for 2016, I want you to think about how you’re using social media to grow your business.
What does your relationship with your social sites look like?
Are you like me with triumphs on some sites and struggles on others? Is there something holding you back from using a social media program you know you need to be on because you just don’t know how to fit it into your weekly to-do list?
I think the first place to start is to admit to where you are right now. Share it with friends, post your struggles in the comments section or write your own blog post. Just find a way to get it out of your head and start thinking about how you can make some changes.
So here we go into a new year my friends. Time to learn from our struggles and celebrate our successes.
This is my social media story. This is my truth. What’s yours?
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